(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a terminal for a computer network and a method of recording control operation history data, and more particularly to a technique of recording remote control operation history data in a computer network in which one of a plurality of terminals connected through the network is used as a control terminal for conducting remote control operation of another terminal on a screen sharing basis.
(2) Description of the Related Art
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H8 (1996)-235093 and No. H3 (1991)-276342, for example, it has been proposed to provide a remote control type computer network system, comprising a plurality of terminals or computers, in which one of the terminals (control terminal) conducts remote operation of another terminal (remote controlled terminal) on a screen sharing basis.
In the remote control type computer network system, an input operation by an operator at the control terminal is transferred to the remote controlled terminal, and in response to the input operation, an application program is executed on the remote controlled terminal. When the contents displayed on a screen at the remote controlled terminal are changed as a result of execution of the application program, the contents thus changed are reflected to the control terminal. In this manner, the operator at the control terminal can carry out remote operation while viewing displayed contents identical to those at the remote controlled terminal.
As an operation history recording method in the remote control type computer network system mentioned above, there is a conventional technique in which remote control operation history information indicating the transition of displayed contents due to the operator's input operations is stored at the control terminal and a sequence of operations is reproduced at the control terminal as required, for example.
However, in this operation history recording method in which operation history data is stored at the control terminal, a user at the remote controlled terminal cannot check immediately whether the remote controlled terminal has been operated by another person and what operation has been performed during the absence of the user.
Further, according to the above-mentioned operation history recording method of storing operation history data at a control terminal, for example, when a system administrator carries out maintenance of a multiplicity of networked user terminals through remote operations in an intra-company information system, a huge amount of operation history data is stored in the terminal of the system administrator. This causes difficulty in storage and reference of the operation history data.
In a distributed processing type network in which data stored in a file server is accessed by a plurality of terminals, operation history data from each terminal is recorded into the file server on the remote controlled side. In this case, the operation history data is stored in the file server for such a purpose as troubleshooting. For example, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. H6 (1994)-67956, operation history data indicating which terminal has performed what operation in which file region is recorded.